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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thunderfoot" data-source="post: 3373090" data-attributes="member: 34175">Set, I think you may have hit upon why the 'old folks' don't like it and the 'new folks' might. -*WARNING THE GENERALIZATIONS THAT FOLLOW ARE JUST THAT, THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO BE A PERSONAL ATTACK ON ANYONE!!!*Back in the day it was 'assumed' that DMs and player's would work on that 'flavor' to round a character on their own and frankly, we did.  It was the job of the DM to give the players small non-adventure hooks to help them flesh out their characters and when a player bit on one the DM would puch it to help them make that character become a little more 'real'.The 'Dead Level" stuff is basically the same thing, but, unfortunately, gives everyone the SAME backstory. /Again a generealization, but hopefully, you can see where I'm going with this./  Having played with a group of 'old schoolers' my entire life this next statement is more of a question, but is this still happening?.  When I was younger and more immature, I cared only for 'kill, take stuff' and started getting into the role playing aspect of RPGs about my sophmore year in HS.  As the years have passed I came to that 'balance' thing the original designers ntended - kill things, take stuff, interact with others, emote about it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Is there a lack of this goiong on in the current 'gamersphere'?  Have people lost some of the basic arts of RPing that they now have to be dictated to be 'associate rules' then I am FOR "dead Level" bonuses just in order for people to 'grow' (for lack of a better term) in figuring this stuff out on their own.  Reading over many of the "skills" granted by the "Dead Levels" article, I must admit that these are things as a DM that I have "rule 0'd" over the years, because they don't really affect game play much.I personally and the group I play with, doesn't need this, we have for many years, done it 'the old fashioned way'.  If a younger, less expierenced or whatever lable group needs this to interject a little 'fluff' into the campaign, then absolutely do it.  Until Set made the comment about crunch versus fluff, I strictly looked at this as a 'level-up - cookies" issue and frankly thought it was a little inane and stupid, but seeing that last post I realized that there are things I assumed all role-players did (because it was always done that way before), that I am unsure now are being put into practice at every table.  Hopefully this post made sense to everyone, If not, I'll be doning my flame-retardant suit now. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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